Free The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine

him again when I left the shop that evening,’ she added, reluctantly.
    ‘Ah. The first time you left, or the second?’
    ‘The second.’
    ‘Most interesting. Where did you speak to him?’
    ‘He was standing in the yard when I came out of the shop.’
    ‘What was he doing there?’
    ‘I don’t know. He seemed to be waiting.’
    ‘For you?’
    ‘No – at least I don’t think so. He seemed surprised to see me. He couldn’t possibly have known I would be there.’
    ‘And what exactly did you speak about, with Mr Jones, as you left the shop? Please tell us exactly.’
    Reluctantly, Sophie dragged her mind back to the darkness of the stable-yard the previous evening. Her stomach felt hollow as she remembered. ‘I said I was going home, but he wouldn’t let me pass.’ The men around her were watching her, passing judgement on her, she thought angrily: ‘Then I managed to get away, and I ran off. That was all. I went straight home.’
    ‘I see. And what time was this?’
    ‘I don’t know. It was about half past seven when I got home, so perhaps around seven o’clock?’
    ‘You can’t be any more precise?’
    ‘I’m afraid not. As I said, I don’t have a watch.’
    Gregson glanced down at a paper in front of him. ‘And you reside in “digs”, is that correct?’
    ‘Yes, at Mrs MacDuff’s boarding house. Several of the girls that work here live there too.’
    ‘Did your landlady see you that night?’
    ‘No – I was too late for supper. But Edith and Minnie and one or two of the other girls saw me as I was coming in.’
    Gregson nodded, but his face gave nothing away. ‘Thank you, Miss Taylor,’ he said gravely. ‘That will be all for now – you may go back to your duties. But I believe we have more to talk about, so we will want to speak with you again very soon.’
    The sergeant did not rise as she turned blindly to leave the room. To Sophie’s surprise it was the quiet, grim-looking detective McDermott who put a hand on her shoulder and guided her out of the door. Outside, she stood still, unsettled.
    ‘Don’t be alarmed, Miss Taylor,’ said Mr McDermott crisply before he turned back towards the office. ‘He simply needs to know exactly what you saw. It’s very important because if all you say is true, you may have been the last person to see Bert Jones before someone made a serious attempt on his life.’
    He disappeared back through the office door, leaving Sophie standing in the passageway bewildered and alone.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    B y lunchtime, Sinclair’s was electric with speculation. There were whispers down the corridors, murmurs in the cloakroom, lowered voices in the refectory.
    ‘Did you hear that Cooper saw her lurking around the exhibition after hours?’
    ‘You know she left at the usual time, but then came back to the store later? She says she forgot something, but it sounds fishy to me.’
    ‘I heard that Bert was working for a gang, and they planned the robbery. She was helping them!’
    ‘They were in on it together. They were going to run off with the loot.’
    ‘No, you’ve got it all wrong. I heard that he saw the gang break in and tried to stop ’em. That’s why they shot him. He’s a hero!’
    ‘But what about her? What’s she got to do with it?’
    ‘She was with that policeman for hours this morning. He must suspect her of something.’
    Outside in the yard, Billy was loading the deliveries. Moving fast and angrily, he heaved a succession of boxes into the van for delivery to customers one after another.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
    ‘More haste, less speed,’ said George. ‘There could be porcelain china in there, for all you know.’
    But Billy felt too furious to do anything slowly. He couldn’t believe all the rubbish those idiots were talking about Sophie. As if she could have had anything to do with that awful fellow Bert! As if she could be mixed up in a burglary! The worst of it was, it was all his own fault. If only he hadn’t got